PRESS RELEASE - Friends of the Irish Environment - 15 January 2021

For Immediate Release

Formal end to the Bord na Mona’s peat harvesting ‘major milestone’
Warning of ‘cowboy contractors’ still ignoring peat planning regulations

The decision by Bord na Mona to end all peat harvesting marked a ‘major milestone’ in Ireland’s progress towards controlling greenhouse gases and biodiversity loss, Friends of the Irish Environment said in a statement today. read full story / add a comment

Call for change in Coillte Principal Objects as illegal felling video released
Work stopped by residents due to recommence

An environmental charity has called on the Government to change Coillte Teo’ Principle Objects to add ‘social’ and ‘environmental’ to its sole current sole ‘commercial’ remit.

Friends of the Irish Environment released a video on social media over the New Years’ weekend showing residents stopping clearfelling of a Special Area of Conservation by Coillte Teo which was viewed more than 4,000 time over the weekend. The video, taken at Kilsheelan Woods in the Lower River Suir Area of Special Conservation, shows an extensive woodland area between the N22 road and the River Suir undergoing clearfelling. read full story / add a comment

State refuses release of 2020 images recording ongoing turf cutting on protected raised bogs

Machinery at work on 28 protected raised bogs confirmed to Europe by Ireland

The National Parks and Wildlife Service has refused to release images recording ongoing destruction of Ireland’s protected raised bogs during 2020.

The request came from the environmental charity Friends of the Irish Environment [FIE] who first brought the activities to the attention of the authorities in 2009. The prohibition on cutting on 56 Special Areas of Conservation {SAC] protected raised bogs was due to take effect in 1998 but was not imposed until 2009. read full story / add a comment

The environmental charity Friends of the Irish Environment has called on Taoiseach Micheal Martin to clarify the Irish government's position in relation to efforts to allow the EU to subsidize nuclear power plants. According to a document seen by Friends of the Irish environment, several countries, including France, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, want the EU to allow subsidies to nuclear plants in return for backing a higher EU 2030 climate target. However, other countries including Luxembourg and Austria, are rejecting these plans. The position of the Irish government is not clear. read full story / add a comment

Atlantic Bays stripped of wild fish to eat lice off farmed salmon
Records show 1.6m wild fish destroyed in 4 years

More than 1.6 million wild fish were taken from Ireland’s Atlantic bays to eat the lice off farmed salmon between May 2015 and November 2019. The figures, released to environmental groups through Access to Information on the Environment requests, are the first official record of salmon farming’s practices on these wild fish. read full story / add a comment

Call for Covid-19 ‘track and trace’ for rhododendron
Spread of rhododendron ‘death warrant’ for countryside

The spread of rhododendron across Ireland’s countryside has been likened to Covid-19 by an environmental charity, Friends of the Irish Environment [FIE]. FIE have called for a ‘track and trace’ programme to be put in place to control the increasing spread of this ‘beautiful and picturesque death warrant’.

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Twelve years after losing their original case against the planning permission for a LNG terminal on the Shannon River, Friends of the Irish Environment [FIE] today received a High Court order quashing An Bord Pleanala’s grant of permission and awarding costs in their favour. The proposed terminal was due to process Liquid Natural Gas [LNG] from the USA for consumption in Ireland and to be distributed throughout the EU.

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High Court to hear challenge against unsustainable fishing in Ireland and the EU

The Irish High Court granted leave today to the environmental charity Friends of the Irish Environment [FIE] to apply for a Judicial Review aimed at challenging the EU Regulation setting 2020 fishing quotas under the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) because of its failure to meet a legally defined deadline of ending overfishing in all stocks by 2020.

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Call on Minister to control private companies as Bord Na Mona quits peat bedding sector

Action comes two years after environmental complaint

Two years after calling on the Minister for Agriculture, Michael Creed, to exercise his powers under the legislation to stop Teagasc, the Farm Advisory Service, and Bord na Mona from promoting the use of deep peat for bedding in animal housing, Bord na Mona has announced that it is exiting the peat bedding market.

The extent of the practice came to light on field trips conducted by Friends of the Irish Environment in the summer of 2018. It coincided with Bord na Mona and Teagasc beginning to market peat as an alternative to straw after the poor harvests led to shortages of straw. The company entered the market in 2017, having reportedly appointed a team to manage sales and grow the market in the wake of reduced use of peat for power generation.

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European Court to rule on Shannon LNG Planning Permission
Court Advised to quash An Bord Pleanala’s consent for Shannon fracked gas terminal

An Bord Pleanála’s extension to the 2008 grant of planning permission for a €500m liquified natural gas terminal on the Shannon Estuary will be the subject of a Reference from the European Court of Justice on Wednesday.

A Preliminary Reference to the European Court was made by Irish High Court Justice Garret Simons on 1 February 2019 after a Judicial Review was brought by Friends of the Irish Environment [FIE].

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High Court calls Ireland and the Attorney General into challenge to Legal Aid Board’s refusal to consider aid for environmental charity.

Judge highlight Aarhus Convention’s requirements for access to justice

High Court Justice Niamh Hyland has directed that Ireland and the Attorney General be joined in the proceedings brought by an environmental charity against the Legal Aid Board for its refusal to consider an application for legal aid because the charity was a company and not an individual. read full story / add a comment

Michael Moore's important new film 'Planet of Humans' has given shape to suspicions that I and many others have had about the burgeoning green movement and what is driving it's sudden popularity across the spectrum, despite all the years "in the wilderness" when old school green activists were pariahs.
Of course It's the usual reason as we suspected: i.e. corporate PROFIT!
WATCH THIS MOVIE!! read full story / add a comment

Shannon LNG faces further challenge in High Court
Judicial Review of listing as ‘Project of Common Interest’

The controversial Shannon LNG terminal proposed for the Shannon Estuary faces its second challenge in the High Court from the environmental charity, Friends of the Irish Environment today. The environmental organisation is asking the Irish Court to seek a ruling from the Court of Justice of the European Union on whether the inclusion of the project on a list of priority European Energy infrastructure was lawful. read full story / add a comment

High Court to hear challenge against unsustainable fishing in Ireland and the EU

The Irish High Court today formally initiated a Judicial Review proceedings aimed at challenging the EU Regulation setting 2020 fishing quotas under the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) because of its failure to meet a legally defined deadline of ending overfishing in all stocks by 2020.

A judge will be assigned on July 15th to hear the application for leave to apply for a Judicial Review from the environmental charity Friends of the Irish Environment. read full story / add a comment

Bord na Móna ‘Enforcement Holiday’ flies in the face of a High Court Judgment
Semi-state accused of declaring Brexit for 80,000 hectares

An ‘enforcement holiday’ currently being exercised by Bord na Mona to allow industrial harvesting to continue this year across its bogs ‘flies in the face of a High Court Judgment’, according to the environmental charity Friends of the Irish Environment [FIE]. read full story / add a comment

Councils must publish planning documents online within 5 days
Regulations impose time frame to ensure public access to planning applications

Local authorities are now obliged to put online planning applications within 5 days of their acceptance.

A Statutory Instrument published May 26, 2020 and signed by Eoghan Murphy, Minister for Housing, Planning and Local Government, requires that Local Authorities must ‘publish the application and all documentation accompanying the application on its internet website within five days’. read full story / add a comment

Bord na Mona warned over unauthorised peat extraction on Timahoe Bog, Co. Laois

Bord na Mona has received a second solicitor’s letter warning that ongoing continuing industrial peat extraction on its bogs is unauthorised. The new warning relates to land leased by Bord na Mona to a private operator on the semi-state body’s Timahoe Bog in County Laois. read full story / add a comment

EU Biomass Case Denied Access to The Courts
Applicants considering appeal to end burning forest wood as renewable and carbon neutral

In March 2019 applicants from six countries including the USA brought a claim stating that the EU’s 2018 Renewable Energy Directive (RED II) will devastate forests and increase greenhouse gas emissions by promoting burning forest wood as renewable and carbon neutral.

On 11 May 2020 the EU Court published an order that the applicants who have brought this case, including individuals and groups from Estonia, France, Ireland, Romania and Slovakia, do not have legal standing and that it will not therefore make a decision on whether or not the biomass provisions of RED II should be annulled. read full story / add a comment

Invasive Australian flatworm reaches west Cork
Sellers of plants should warn public of dangers of contaminated garden matter

The invasive Australian flatworm has reached the Beara peninsula in west Cork. Flatworms from New Zealand were first recorded in Ireland in the 1960’s but the Australian flatworm was not recorded until 1981.

Flatworms are top-level predators of soil organisms. They eat earthworms and appear to have met no natural enemies of their own in Ireland. According to the National Biodiversity Centre, the implications of its indefinite spread for the drainage and fertility of our soil ‘pose a threat to Ireland’s biodiversity and economy’. Japanese knotweed and the zebra mussels are examples of invasive species now out of control in Ireland. read full story / add a comment

130 national and international groups have today written to all Irish Party leaders requesting them to remove support for fracked gas infrastructure in Ireland. The letter comes as negotiations for Government intensify and requests an explicit policy statement to be included in the next Programme for Government against the development of all new fossil fuel infrastructure in the form of LNG import terminals that could facilitate the entry of unconventional fracked gas into the Irish energy mix.

Two fracked gas terminals, or - LNG - terminals are currently proposed, in Shannon and Cork. The terminals would be developed as import hubs, allowing fracked gas into the European market from the USA where there is currently an oversupply of this controversial fuel. The terminals would play an important role in the shale gas supply chain, the market for which is currently very unstable. read full story / add a comment